21 Classes - Setting Up A Class Blog
There are many possibilities for students using a blog to share their learning. When it comes time to actually implement a class blog, I have 2 issues that give me pause as an elementary teacher. The first is student privacy and related concerns that many parents have. The second is student to student communication. As I move into Web 2.0 tools with students, I have some control issues to work out.
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I found a Blog Host ( 21 Classes ) which seems to offer some nice features to structure student blogs and moderate posts and comments. Because I am using a blog for student reflections (A Grade 5 Wetlands Project ) in May, I thought I should set up a test site. I registered at 21 Classes and created a site with two fake students (Figure 1).
The only obstacle was that each new student seems to require a unique email address. I made 2 GMail accounts, but may use fake email addresses when adding 30 students. The email addresses serve no purpose in my scheme of things.
I started by having the accounts public. Sure enough, when Student Two put up a post, her blog was visible to the whole world. I don't want to start this way, and so I upgraded my account ($9 per month) to have more control over public and private posts (Figure 2). Things started to get pretty cool. I made the blogs private to non-members. I am notified of all new posts (Figure 3) and student blogs are published only once I approve them (Figures 4 & 5). Comments must also be approved by me. It is easy to set up links and blogrolls. News and assignments can be sent to the students, although I have a few things to learn with this feature.
On the less paranoid side, students can give each other co-authoring rights for an account. They can upload movies, pictures and other documents to share. The editing tools feel quite useable. Students can control the look of their pages using a handful of themes. I have struggled to change background images and banner images, and hope to get some help from the site authors.
If you are curious and have the time, check out the hypothetical site. If you log in as SCE-Student-One or SCE-Student-Two, you will be able to poke around. The password is password.
All in all, the 21 Classes blogging tool is helping to give me the confidence to plan the use of a class blog in an inquiry project. If there are other service providers, I would love to know about them.
posted by John Lobe @ 11:41 PM
2 Comments:
I looked at 21 classes - I'd be interested to see how your project flies! I'm sure the parents will appreciate the "control freak" comment you posted on Student Two's page - it could be standard fare for your student blogs....maybe even incorporated into the title?!
John,
Thank you for sharing this site, I had not discovered it yet! I am very interested in starting up blogs with my students in the fall, and given some of the issues I may encounter, this may alleviate some concerns.
I also really like the Edublog accounts. Did you know Edublogs allows you to post your podcasts without needing an internet host? (they provide the server). If podcasting was to be a major focus with my classes, I might go in that direction.
Thanks for your wonderful insights and "experiments" - I have learned a lot from you this semester!
Ronda
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